Doctor culls patients with names from hat

POWASSAN, Ontario, July 22 (UPI) -- A Canadian family doctor who felt overwhelmed by his patient load culled his practice by pulling unlucky names from a hat.

Dr. Ken Runciman agreed to come to the small town of Powassan, Ontario, 200 miles north of Toronto, but came to the conclusion he was being given too much work, the Toronto Sun reported Tuesday.

One of his patients, Janet Gauthier, told the Toronto Sun she got a letter from Runciman saying his patient load was twice what he had been told before arriving, and he had drawn patient numbers from a hat to determine who he couldn't serve anymore.

It wasn't known how many patients were set aside, although the Sun said one of Runciman's colleagues at the Powassan Medical Center also used the same "names-from-a-hat" system to scale back his practice.

A move is afoot in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec to ease restrictions for U.S. and similarly educated doctors to establish practices without having to rewrite full medical exams amid claims family doctors are overworked, the report said.